Fiddleheads and Shellfish

It didn't take me long to discover this week's theme - walking to work at the Fish House, I discovered a sprouting fern patch: FIDDLEHEADS! The fiddlehead season is only about 2-3 weeks long around here, so I knew I had to take advantage of them immediately. I went out as soon as work was over and harvested about 3lbs of the natural Fibbonacci fronds, one at a time. I wish I had my camera then.

I had some egg whites left over from making ice cream last weekend, so it was either Pavlova or pasta. I had to make pasta, because everybody looked at me weird when I suggested making egg-white pasta. Trust me, it works. Once I decided on pasta, clams seemed like a natural pair with fiddleheads. Vongolaise!

Local organic apples are SO easy to find and SO cheap (about $1/lb year round), and I've never made a Tarte Tatin, so I thought I'd give that a shot. I had some leftover Avalon organic butter, and found organic Canadian flour at the Food Warehouse (1st & Lonsdale) for $3.50/kg. Mmm, 100% organic, local gala apple Tarte Tatin. I also stopped by Cinnamon's Chocolates on 2nd and picked up a half dozen handmade caramels for petit fours - I saw the Avalon organic milk delivery truck pull up there a couple of days ago, so I knew I had to take a chance on their chocolate.
And I felt like having oysters... but I can't stand being fleeced by those hosers at Lonsdale Quay: $18.69/dozen! Unshucked! No thanks... even if I have to buy 5 dozen at a time to get wholesale prices, that's what I'll do to keep my hard-earned dollars out of yuppie market profiteers. Needless to say, I spent the next morning picking oyster shells out of my couch cushions.
A small group of dedicated diners arrived in time for oysters and freshly baked Island City filoncini, and the rest was history - Karen brought a Muscadet from Loire (honeysuckle, melon, floral bouquet, with crisp dry finish - NICE) and Tristan brought a single-origin Ethiopian Harrar coffee for a little intermezzo (tropical fruit driven by acidity, to open the eyes and the palate). We tasted a bottle of El Bulli's new beer, the Estrella Dam Inedit (very light, unfiltered wheat beer - gorgeous and crisp!) Finally, in the 11th hour, Destinee rolled in with some watermelon sheesha. Another successful Knight at the Corner Table.

The Foodist Mangia-festo - A Call to Farms! (The Pork Fatwa)

I believe it was Voltaire who said that every philosophy contains the seeds of its own destruction. Today is a sad day, my friends, for I am beginning to feel this way about the state of dining in general. I've just about had enough.
As a cook, I felt like a slave. As a server, I feel like a servant begging for scraps. Yet, I cry tears of joy for the most reverently and fearfully created dishes, and experience some of my greatest peak experiences in the midst of a busy dinner service. I cannot seem to reconcile these experiences!
With my increasing interest in food ethics and food security, my philosophical inclination predisposes me to believe that having a plate of food and, if one is lucky, a glass of wine to enjoy it with, is the only thing of any importance in this life -- save for the company of loved ones.
Yet, restaurants are invariably concerned with profits above ethics. Even the best and most ethical of restaurants that are popping up in this town, on the cutting edge of dining responsibility as it is, charge exorbitant prices. It seems that dining in the best interest of society as a whole is reserved for the upper class. And more often than not, from my experience in the dining room, these people are barely aware of the importance of food ethics, let alone even actually care about the future of food security. As much as dining is the shrine of the moment, and the dining room is a place to put all of one's worries out of one's mind and enjoy the beauty of this one meal, this is no excuse for the ignorance of the rich.
What's even worse, are the attitudes of the people who work in this industry. So many of us are indifferent to what we put in our sautee pans or carry in our own two hands on the way to the table. We're more concerned about our careers, or our tips, or the hostess we're trying to shag. Even of the cooks and servers who are informed about the pressing issues surrounding our food system, there is a big shrug and a "what can you do?" about the fact that every single restaurant pushes countless litres a day of GM corn in the form of cans or boxes of soda. The best you can do as a frontline worker in this battle is to keep doing what you're told until, some day, you too can make a tiny difference in our evolution toward gastronomic awareness - also accepting the golden handcuffs of profiteering as your master.
Well, we don't have time to fuck around with our tiny lives and self-interests. I don't care if you become a celebrity chef. I don't care if your restaurant makes money. I don't care if your ethical eatery gets 28 in the Zagat guide, because 70%* of food consumers in this city will never spend $30 on an entree. The 30% of us who will are just as likely to waste our money on an unethical alternative, because we only do eat out "once in a while," or because we simply don't care. The only reason any of us have enough money to eat your $30 entree is because, somewhere along the line, we've sacrificed our ideals and mortgaged the future of our species in some way. Those of us who can afford to eat ethically at $30/plate are merely outsourcing our pollution and karma to those who can't afford boutique ingredients at a four-star restaurant. Everybody needs to make a living, we tell ourselves, and overlook our daily overconsumption and reckless disregard for the stewardship of this planet.
Fuck that! I say. We need to wake the fuck up. And our restaurants aren't doing anybody any good, we're only getting better at being wasteful. Everybody needs to be able to eat locally, organically, and ethically. Everybody needs access to an affordable meal, and good company. And even the poorest of us deserve to experience the beauty of gastronomy, once in a while.
I will never become your chef. I will never become your bar manager, your maitre'd. I will never actually care about any arm of the unquestioned profiteering restauranteer agenda. I care about the future of our food... I care about where it comes from, and what it does to our bodies and our producers... I care about the taste, the love, and the passion. But we don't have much time left to cast our votes for our future... and we can only do it one meal at a time.
*Every single one of these numbers is completely anecdotal and improvised. Statistics and polls these days aren't a far cry from opinion anyways, so fuck it.

Review Biased by Good Company

Halfway through my tiramisu, cupping my last slurp of creamy espresso, it seems the warm lighting and velveteen sabayon are going straight to my head. Maybe it was the flight of local wines, or maybe it was the attention of the doe-eyed English major next to me, but somewhere in between good food and good company, I've long since filed this 3-course prix-fixe at Quattro on Fourth a glorious success of an evening.

I arrived too late for a coveted seat at the round table under the ornate, iron-leafed romantic chandelier in the corner, but from my banquet table seat with the rest of the candle-lit class, I heard my name whispered loudly from its other end. I could swear I saw the leather-bound lips of the hefty wine list move in time. Obligingly, I leaf through to find a delightful list of local wines by the glass, from the crisp and aromatic $11 Joie Noble Blend to the legendary Black Hills Nota Bene. For $24.50/glass, I'm happy that they offer this, but I'm not going to pay that much for a glass of wine and I don't know how they sell enough of it to keep it lively night in and night out. Fat bordeaux blends are not often agreeable with the menu's vegetarian options, either.

Primi: three little balls of bocconcini wrapped in grilled raddichio, balsamic reduction. Joie Noble Blend seemed an easy friend of this light vegetarian dish, but I don't know many dishes that wouldn't get along with this glass. Firm, yet lightly melted mild cheese was made all the more substantial and savory by the charred, pleasantly bitter flavor of fire-kissed raddichio. This mild textural affair found its counterpart in the intense sweetness and acidity of balsamic reduction, and even the garnish of frisee in lightly sweet cherry vinaigrette provided a nice break from everything that was going on in each of these subtle yet luxurious vegetarian bites. I chased each one with a leaf of the undressed endive garnish, like a glass of water shaped like a tulip petal.

Secondi: mushroom fettucine. Quail's Gate Pinot Noir. How could I not have pasta at an Italian ristorante? Besides, I just like saying its name – fettucine tartufate. Perfectly al dente fettucine dressed in a porcini gravy with plump wild mushroms and liberally shaved parmesan cheese. Light fruit and acidity in the local pinot pairs perfectly with the rich savor of this fantastic pasta. A hack restaurant would have served this fettucine in a cream sauce more like an alfredo, but this was clearly a highly reduced porcini jus, delicately mounted with dairy. So simple: just pasta, mushrooms, and cheese. I haven't had pasta this good since last time I made pasta myself.

As I considered risking an after-dinner cocktail, I was happy to hear that we also had a dessert option – cherry cheesecake or tiramisu. Of course! Why would I ever have an Italian meal without a final course of tiramisu and espresso? My anticipation of this denouement sends me into a blissful stratosphere. I've already decided that this will be good. At this point of the meal, they would have to work pretty hard to screw up this tiramisu.

Somewhere there is a break in our final course conversation of University Gastronomica, local fish stocks, and Foodism in general, and I find myself reveling in the whole of this dining experience. As a food-centric individual, I will often judge a restaurant rather harshly based solely on its food and drink service, pulling no punches and offering no quarter. But at this moment I realise, as if for the first time, that the experience of dining is often affected by things beyond the restaurant's control. It is up to the establishment to set the correct lighting, select music at appropriate volumes and tempos, and serve my wine in a clean glass, but can the restaurant control the music of happily chatting diners? A restaurant cannot control the good company I keep, nor the intensity and intelligence of conversation that comes to life over the table. These things are up to us, the diners, and our companions. So, as for my review of Quattro: impressively simple food, extensive local wine list, effortless service with few flaws. Quattro has done the job that it has been paid to do.

My dining companions, however, are those who have truly made my evening memorable. And I didn't even have to pay them to do so. Thanks.